Fortitude, like prudence, is a word with an antiquated air. We hardly ever use it, preferring substitutes like courage, bravery, or heroism.  The difficulty, however, matters, less here than with prudence, since people are hardly in doubt as to what “fortitude” implies.

Some implications, however, may not be accurate. Fortitude suggests a quality of champions, but it essentially presumes human vulnerability. An angel cannot display fortitude, because an angel is not vulnerable. 

Fortitude, as Augustine said, is testimony to the fact that we are exposed to and affected by evil in the world. Goodness thus inevitably means a readiness to struggle or to do battle; for this we need fortitude.

Evil in the world does not mean that the world itself is evil. Christianity has never doubted that the world is good, that is, capable of realising God’s intention, but it has also maintained that things are out of joint; that the world is always shadowed and threatened by evil.

Goodness has no effortless sway. Individuals must struggle, and if necessary sacrifice for its sake. It’s an illusion, for instance, to imagine that anyone can be consistently just without ever having to risk anything.

What one risks, if the occasion demands it, may be something less than life; it may be immediate well-being, possessions, or advancement. On the other hand, it may be the surrender of life itself, or more accurately, the acceptance of death. The martyr is the ultimate symbol of fortitude.

Fortitude is neither simply fearlessness nor exuberant and reckless valour. And here its connection to prudence is obvious. Fortitude presupposes an appropriate evaluation of a situation, grave with danger or risk.

One can be genuinely brave only in the face of fearful danger, that is, danger that actually provokes fear. Under such conditions, to be afraid is not being timid. It’s the result of a clear assessment of one’s situation.

The brave individual faces a real enemy, but bravery alone is not sufficient for fortitude.  This is the import of that apparently strange maxim of St Ambrose: “Fortitude must not trust itself.”

What this means is that it always remains subject to proper review, where certain questions are prior: is the action contemplated appropriate (prudence)? Is it just (justice)? 

It is thus no accident that fortitude is placed third in the list of cardinal virtues. The dictates of prudence and justice always have priority.

I said earlier that “heroism” is one of our substitutes for fortitude, but between both terms there are similarities and differences. The environment where the word “hero” is most at home is battle or war, though the word is often extended to the field of athletics.

Thus, Tiger Woods is the golfing “hero” of the current moment, as Michael Jackson was in basketball. In these latter instances, heroism means standing heads and shoulders above the rest.

In a context of war, the hero is the one who conquers. He or she gets the Victoria Cross or the Purple Heart, or one of the many emblems of bravery on the battlefield. What we salute is courage, daring, and the ability to overcome.

These qualities are also true of fortitude, but the latter also takes you into different world, where the salient feature is not so much conquering as enduring or suffering. In the ultimate test of fortitude, which is martyrdom, there’s nothing of the ordinary associations of conquest or victory.

The martyr displays fortitude, but recall the form this quality took in several of the lives we are familiar with. Consider, for instance, the life of Thomas More. The martyr is not the one hailed and welcomed with honour and tribute from a grateful people.

He is the one accused, the prisoner, the one dragged to the stake, abandoned, and ridiculed. Above all, what we see is silence. The martyr is the one reduced to being mute.

Fortitude may thus look very much like its opposite. Not the pride of the conqueror but the failure of one apparently vanquished. It’s not difficult to see why for the ancients, fortitude consisted primarily in steadfastness, not in aggressiveness or attack.

The image was defined not only by the martyr, the one who was in no position to know of the reverence or high regard of later generations, but by the Lord. The yardstick was the apparent defeat of the cross.

Because of the Lord’s example, the martyr’s defeat was always understood and celebrated as victory. “We conquer while we’re being slain,” said Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers.

Still, St Teresa of Avila reminds us that “martyr” is also perfectly appropriate for every unimposing or unknown individual who lives in lifelong devotion to goodness or truth, and is always prepared to make relevant sacrifices. An imperfect human being, she wrote, needs greater fortitude to travel the path of perfection than to undertake martyrdom in a brief moment.

Heroism has also always been associated with the notion of glory. From the battlefields of Troy and Thermopylae, to the Allied landing at Anzio, the “prize” of the hero has been “glory.” 

Glory as universal acclaim or public acknowledgement is what heroes have received from time immemorial. A great deal of poetry through the ages would cease to exist, but for the valour displayed by heroes.

As applied to the martyr, glory is recognition by God himself, sanction and endorsement by the Lord of all, who declares about this servant that it is “glorious” to be what he or she is.

Freud once remarked that most heroism sprang from an instinctive conviction that “Nothing can happen to me.” It may have been something whose deeper meaning escaped him, but the conviction has always been classically the conviction of the good person.

For such persons, and their number includes Socrates and St Paul, death could not be entirely evil for anyone who surrenders life for love of goodness or truth.